Victory Mission in Salinas says it faces closure

A Salinas non-profit faces an uncertain future after plans to grow are halted by a hefty bill from the city.

Victory Mission in Chinatown told KION their legal battle with the city may force them to shut down.

Victory Mission has been a refuge for the homeless population in Salinas for 59 years.

“I got off the Amtrak and had nowhere to go it, it was the coldest day of the year. I came to the mission, knocked on the door and they let me in,” said Newt Mccarthy.

The non-profit serves meals to hundreds of homeless and houses many others. Something they hope to continue doing as they expand to land they bought next to them.

“The owner of this property had come to us and wanted to help us attain the property, he was impressed with what we were doing and thought it would be a help to us to build more space,” said Ken Cusson, Executive Director of Victory Mission.

The owner’s price was $60,000, a price the mission wasn’t comfortable with but decided to go for.

Hesitation came though once they found about required clean-up of the damaged property mandated by the city.

The estimated price the previous owner gave them for cleanup was up to $175,000.

“We backed out it just in time before it went into escrow, but we talked about it again when the owner came to us and said are you sure you don’t want to do this I’d love for you to get this property,” said Cusson.

The mission was convinced.

“We stepped out in faith and decided ok, we will start again we’ll go into it.”

In the meantime, the city said no action was being taken to repair the damage on the property.

The city told KION the damage is a threat to the community and danger they were obligated to address quickly.

“The city had to fence the area off so that folks wouldn’t get near it because there was imminent threat that the wall the one remaining wall would fall down, it was a brick wall so you would have bricks collapsing on whomever went there, there were also hazardous materials as a result of that building collapse including the result of our putting out the fire,” said Salinas City Attorney Chris Callihan.

The cost to fix the damage is approximately $349,000.

“The mission has never had $400,000 in our pocket at any time in the history of the mission,” said Cusson.

Victory Mission has filed a petition of writ of mandate,that will ask a court to set aside the city’s action to look into the costs in the first place.

“If we don’t find some way to work this through the mission will close because the city wants that money and they’re not going to stop apparently until they get it.”

The city attorney told KION because they’re in litigation over the costs they won’t comment on what solutions may come about, but the city doesn’t agree that a loss in court means the Victory Mission will lose their current property.

The city said a hearing is scheduled for the end of the year.